Badger Cull - UK

Over the past 5 years, 35,000 or more badgers have been needlessly shot under licence across the west and south west of England, as part of the government’s strategy for reducing bovine TB in cattle.

The vast majority of these poor animals will have been perfectly healthy, and there is precious little evidence that the tiny proportion that that may have been infected with bovine TB posed any real risk to cattle. After five years of culls in the original ‘pilot zones’ in Gloucestershire and Somerset, the government has failed to generate any clear evidence that the slaughter is directly resulting in a significant reduction in cattle TB.

In spite of this, the government is now consulting on plans to lift the limit of 10 new licensed cull zones in the high-risk area for bovine TB in the west and south west of England, and to introduce the possibility of badgers being culled in response to TB outbreaks in other parts of England where bovine TB is currently rare (the ‘Low-Risk Area’).

Born Free has always maintained that badger culling is unscientific, inhumane, ineffective and unnecessary. If the government continues to roll out this policy and systematically remove restrictions to its scope, tens and perhaps hundreds of thousands more badgers are set to suffer at the hands of cull operatives with hardly any oversight, and badgers could all but disappear across large areas of our countryside where they have lived for millennia.

If you disagree with the badger cull, and object to these plans to expand them still further, please take this opportunity to make your feelings known. The deadline for responses is 15th April 2018.